2020 St Joseph Le Clos

It's always fun to taste the Les Granits next to the Le Clos, as the wines are dramatically different. The 2020 Saint Joseph Le Clos comes from a higher elevation, more east-facing site, and the alcohol is always a touch lower here, checking in at 13.6%, with the Les Granits being 14.1%. Closed and tight aromatically, it slowly offers up pure cassis, mulberry, and scorched earth-like aromatics, and I always find a Hermitage-like regalness in this wine. Full-bodied, pure, utterly seamless, concentrated, and with a great finish, this is as classy and refined as Saint Joseph gets. Hide bottles for 4-5 years if you can and enjoy over the following two decades. It's one of the greatest Saint Josephs out there.

Glass-staining ruby. Potent kirsch, blackcurrant, olive and licorice qualities on the highly perfumed, spice- and mineral-accented nose. Stains the palate with alluringly sweet black and blue fruit liqueur, spicecake and violet pastille flavors that are underscored by a vein of smoky minerality. Shows outstanding finesse for its power and structure and finishes very long and smoky with building tannins adding framework and closing grip.

A superb Saint-Joseph, capable of rivaling those produced by the local vignerons, Chapoutier's 2020 Saint-Joseph Le Clos offers up nicely perfumed aromas of licorice, blueberries and cassis. Full-bodied, earthy and powerful on the palate, it's a rich, muscular style of Saint-Joseph, loaded with ripe tannins and finishing long and textured.